Noah's Compass

  Eunice looked unhappy. She said, “Oh. Right.”

  Although Liam couldn’t really work up much interest in her family. It was just her parents, after all—a couple of right-wing Republicans, from the sound of it—and he felt that he was long past the meet-the-parents stage of life. Besides which (here was the real thing), he was uncomfortably aware that he and Eunice’s father were members of the same generation, more or less. What a bizarre scene: one gray-haired man playing Daughter’s Boyfriend while the other played Stern Dad. Further proof of just how unsuitable this romance really was, at least in the eyes of the outside world.

  So he said, “Maybe when your father’s a little stronger,” and Eunice said, “Yes, maybe when his speech improves.” She looked relieved. “Then you could come for a drink,” she said. “They’ve been dying to meet you. We could all sit out on the terrace and have a nice long visit. You would have so much to talk about! Once they got to know you they would love you, I’m just positive.”

  With every word she uttered, she sounded less convincing. Liam said, “No point rushing though, when he’s been so ill.”

  “Oh, no.”

  “Plenty of time to meet later.”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “How is his speech, by the way?”

  “It’s going well,” she said. “Bit by bit, I mean.”

  “Is he getting any sort of professional help?”

  “Oh, yes, every week. I’m the one who takes him, because my mom has her aerobics class then. He sees this cute little girl who talks with a lisp. Can you believe a speech therapist would lisp?”

  “Maybe that’s why she went into it,” Liam said.

  “She calls him ‘Mithter Dunthtead,’ ” Eunice said with a giggle. “ ‘Mithter Thamuel Dunthtead.’ ”

  She looked pretty cute herself, Liam noticed. Laughter always turned her cheeks pink.

  He tried to picture the four of them sitting on the terrace. Her parents would ask him where he worked, just making polite conversation, but when he said he didn’t work, their expressions would cloud over. Where was he thinking of working, then? Nowhere. And he was twenty-some years older than their daughter, and he’d flubbed up two marriages, and he lived in a rented apartment.

  They would exchange glances. Their eyes would narrow in a certain way he knew well.

  But things were not as bad as they seemed! he wanted to tell them. He was a better man than he looked!

  He did somehow feel, these days, that he was a good man.

  She was even less social than Liam, if you didn’t count those girlfriends of hers. That was another of her traits. When Liam’s old philosophy professor came through town, she claimed Mr. C. had an evening meeting that would keep her from going to dinner with them. When the guidance counselor at St. Dyfrig threw his annual barbecue, she declined on the grounds of the high pollen count.

  But one Friday afternoon, Bundy phoned and asked Liam if he felt like going out for a bite to eat. His fiancée had dumped him, he said, and he was tired of sitting home brooding. In view of the circumstances, Liam felt he couldn’t refuse, although he had already arranged to spend the evening with Eunice.

  “Would you mind if I brought somebody?” he asked.

  “Who’s that?”

  “Oh, just a woman I’ve gotten to know.”

  It occurred to him to wonder if demonstrating his new couplehood at that particular moment showed a lack of tact, but Bundy seemed to find the prospect entertaining. “Whoa!” he said. “This I’ve got to see. Why not? Bring her along.”

  So Liam called Eunice’s cell phone and left a message about the change of plans. He was conscious as he spoke that he was not delivering welcome news; and sure enough, when Eunice called back she sounded less than thrilled.

  “I thought we were eating in tonight,” she said.

  “Well, yes, we were, but Bundy’s getting over a breakup.”

  “You never mentioned any Bundy before,” she told him accusingly.

  “Didn’t I? Oh, Bundy and I go way back. He’s African American,” he added as an enticement.

  But still Eunice said, “Maybe I’ll skip it. I’m not sure how late Mr. C. will be needing me.”

  Liam groaned. From time to time, he had the feeling that Ishmael Cope and he were engaged in a sibling rivalry of sorts. He said, “He’s got to allow you some private life.”

  “Well, but, and also, Tumbleweed, you said. I don’t want to eat at Tumbleweed! It’s too fancy. I don’t have the right clothes.”

  “Tumbleweed is not fancy,” Liam said. “I’m not even wearing a tie. I doubt Bundy owns a tie; he isn’t old enough for a—”

  But then he saw underneath to what was really bothering her. “Eunice,” he said. “Sweetheart. You would look fine, whatever you wore. I’m going to be very proud to introduce you.”

  “Well, I do have something black,” Eunice said. “Black always seems more elegant.”

  “Black would be perfect,” he told her.

  They arranged to meet at the restaurant, because Eunice had to stop off at her parents’ house to change. Since she and Bundy didn’t know each other, Liam made a point of showing up first, and he requested a table in front where he could watch the street for her arrival.

  It was true that Tumbleweed wasn’t fancy. The lights were fake kerosene lanterns, the decor was Old West (dark, slightly sticky wooden booths and framed Wanted posters), and most of the other diners were Towson University students. Liam couldn’t imagine that Eunice would find it intimidating.

  Through the front window he saw Bundy striding toward him, a long-legged figure scissoring down the sidewalk in a way that didn’t seem particularly heartbroken. A moment later he was settling into the seat opposite Liam. “Where’s your lady?” he asked.

  “She’ll be along.”

  “See how it works: there’s just a limited amount of romance at any one time in the universe. Naomi dumps me; you get lucky. What’s her name?”

  “Eunice,” Liam said.

  All at once the name sounded vaguely embarrassing. The u sound reminded him of urine.

  “So!” he said brightly. “Why’d Naomi break it off? Or would you rather not discuss it.”

  “Not much to discuss. I come in yesterday from the gym, she’s talking on the phone in this low sexy voice. ‘I’m home!’ I call, and quick as a flash she says into the phone, ‘Fine, let’s make that two o’clock. Shampoo and a trim.’ In a voice that’s totally different, real efficient and bossy, like she’d use with her beautician. Then she slams down the receiver. So after she goes off to the kitchen, I press Redial. Man answers. Says, ‘Yo, babe. False alarm?’ ”

  “Plenty of beauticians call people ‘babe,’ ” Liam announced with authority.

  “But ‘False alarm’? Why’d he say that?”

  “Uh, maybe …”

  “It was her boyfriend, I tell you. The two of them making a fool of me. I tell you, I’ve been stupid. I say to him, ‘No, man. It wasn’t no false alarm.’ Then I go out to the kitchen. ‘Naomi, you got some explaining to do.’ Know what she says? Says, ‘Why you say that?’ Says, ‘That was just Ron at the beauty shop.’ ”

  “Well. See there?” Liam said. “It was Ron at the beauty shop. And when she hung up in a hurry he assumed she must have some emergency, so when his phone rang again he said, ‘False alarm?’ ”

  “How’d he know it was Naomi?” Bundy asked him.

  “He had caller ID, of course.”

  “Right. What’s a place of business want with caller ID?”

  “It seems to me that caller ID would be very useful in business,” Liam said. He considered for a moment. “Interesting,” he said. “If not for modern technology—caller ID and Redial—you would still be a happy man.”

  Bundy snorted. “I’d still be a blind man,” he told Liam. He accepted a menu from their waitress. Then he gave her a second look; she was young and blond and her waist narrowed in as gracefully as the stems on their water goblets. “How a
re you this fine evening?” he asked her.

  “I’m good, thanks,” the waitress said. “Will a third party be joining you?”

  Liam said, “Yes, she ought to be—”

  Then here Eunice was, all at once, rushing in out of breath and saying, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I knew I’d never get away in time!”

  True to her word, she was wearing black. Or her blouse, at least, was black—plain black cotton with big white buttons like Necco wafers. Around her neck hung a rope of jawbreaker-sized red beads that gave her a sweetly clownish air, and lacy silver earrings shaped like upside-down Christmas trees dangled a good three inches below her earlobes.

  “Am I all right?” she asked Liam. He had risen as far as the booth would allow, and so had Bundy.

  Liam said, “Yes, you look very—” but already she was hurtling on. She said, “It’s Mr. C.’s fault I’m late. He told me he had to go to the restroom and of course I couldn’t go with him so I said, ‘Fine, I’ll wait out front,’ and then he never came back so I said to this man going in, not even one of ours, I don’t know who he was, I said, ‘Excuse me, if you see an elderly gentleman could you please—’ Well, not to bore you with all the details but by the time I got home I had about two minutes to make it to the restaurant and so I had to change clothes in one split second, which is why I’m wearing what I’m wearing. I mean, I know I shouldn’t be wearing—”

  “Eunice, this is my friend Bundy Braithwaite,” Liam said. “Eunice Dunstead.”

  “How you doing,” Bundy said, still half standing. He wore a distinctly startled expression, it seemed to Liam.

  Eunice said, “I wouldn’t ordinarily combine this blouse with this skirt.”

  “Won’t you have a seat?” Liam asked her.

  “My mother always tells me,” Eunice said, sitting down next to him, “she says, ‘Eunice, a person’s top half should never, ever be darker than the bottom half. It looks Mafioso,’ she says. And yet here I am—”

  “It can if the two halves share some little bit of color in common,” Bundy said.

  Eunice stopped speaking.

  “Your skirt’s got squiggles of black,” he told her.

  “Oh.”

  “Case closed.”

  Bundy was looking amused now, which Liam didn’t mind in the least. She was amusing; she was charmingly amusing, and she was letting her soft bare arm rest lightly against his own.

  “Shall we order a bottle of wine?” he asked. He had an urge to celebrate, all at once.

  But it emerged that Bundy didn’t want wine. He wanted hard liquor. “I am a man who’s been shafted,” he told Eunice after they’d placed their drink orders. “I don’t know if Liam mentioned.”

  “He did say something about that.”

  “So mere wine will just not cut it. My fiancée has dumped me flat. She claims I don’t trust her.”

  Liam hadn’t heard this part. He said, “You just now admitted you don’t trust her.”

  “I think these earrings are a little too much,” Eunice said.

  Liam looked at them. He said, “They’re fine.”

  “I can take them off, if you like.”

  “They’re fine.”

  “Are you listening to this, or not?” Bundy asked Eunice. “I’m telling how my heart was ripped out.”

  Eunice said, “Oh, excuse me.” She straightened her back and folded her hands and looked at him obediently, like a child in a classroom.

  “I come in from the gym yesterday,” Bundy began all over again, “I hear Naomi on the phone with her boyfriend. Most definitely it was her boyfriend. I could just tell, you know? By her voice. But when I mention something to that effect, she says no, it was her beautician. Right. Then she says well, okay, she only told me it was her beautician because she knew I would be jealous of anybody else. Fact is, she says, it was a guy from work. They were just discussing work. I say, ‘Oh, right.’ She says, ‘See what I mean? You don’t trust me! You don’t give me credit! You never, ever talk to me; you sit watching your dumb sports shows on TV, and then when I meet a man who will have a real conversation, you get all bent out of shape!’ ”

  “Maybe you’re well rid of her,” Eunice told him.

  “Say what?”

  “Why do you even care? You want to watch TV; she wants to do something else; let her do it! Let her go off with her beautician!”

  “He’s not her beautician.”

  “Let her go off with whoever! Maybe every day she’s been thinking, What are we together for? Don’t I deserve something better than this? Someone who understands me? And meanwhile, you could be with some woman who enjoys watching sports on TV.”

  “Huh,” Bundy said. He rocked back in his seat.

  Liam was trying to figure out whether this applied to him in any way. Should he, for instance, buy a television set?

  Eunice said, “But I don’t mean to interfere.”

  “No, no …” Bundy said. Then he said, “Huh,” again.

  Their waitress arrived with their drinks. She set a Scotch in front of Bundy, and he took hold of it immediately but he waited until their wine had been poured before he raised his glass to Liam and Eunice.

  “Cheers,” he said. And then, “So. Eunice. How did you meet our boy, here?”

  “Well,” Eunice said. From her declarative tone of voice, and the important way she resettled herself in her seat, it was clear that she was about to embark on a serious narrative. “One day about a month ago,” she said, “I am walking down the street with my employer. My employer is Ishmael Cope? Of Cope Development? I take notes for him at meetings and such. And we are just walking down the street when up comes Liam out of nowhere and stops to say hello to him.”

  “Liam knows Ishmael Cope?” Bundy asked.

  “Just a nodding acquaintance,” Liam told him.

  “They’d met at this charity ball for diabetes,” Eunice said.

  “Liam went to a charity ball?”

  “Yes, and so … wait, I’m telling you what happened. Liam stops to talk to him but Mr. C. is a little … like, absentminded these days but Liam is just so considerate with him, just so sweet and diplomatic and considerate—”

  “Liam?” Bundy said. “You’re talking about our boy Liam?”

  Liam was starting to feel annoyed with Bundy, and maybe Eunice was too because she said, very firmly, “Yes, Liam. I guess you don’t know him well. Liam is just this … very thoughtful kind of person, not your usual kind of person at all. He is not like any other man I’ve ever known. There’s something different about him.”

  “That I’ll agree with,” Bundy said.

  Liam wished Bundy didn’t seem to be enjoying this so much. But Eunice smiled at him, and a dimple dented her cheek as if someone had poked her gently with an index finger. “It was love at first sight,” she told him. Then she turned to Liam. “For me it was, at least.”

  Liam said, “For me too.” And he saw now that that was the truth.

  Through drinks, through soup, through their entrées (steaks for Eunice and Bundy, rockfish for Liam), Liam was mostly silent, listening to the other two and taking secret pleasure in the warmth of Eunice’s thigh pressed against his. Bundy returned to his breakup; Eunice made appropriate murmuring sounds. She tsk-tsk-ed and shook her head, and one of her Christmas-tree earrings landed on her plate with a clatter.

  It wasn’t that Liam didn’t know her shortcomings. He saw the same woman Bundy must see: plump and frizzy-haired and bespectacled, dumpily dressed, bizarrely jeweled, too young for him and too earnest. But all these qualities he found lovable. And he pitied poor Bundy, who would have to go home alone.

  Although he too, as it happened, went home alone that evening. (Eunice had promised to get back to the house in time to help her father to bed.) Even so, Liam left the restaurant feeling unspeakably lucky.

  As he was crossing the street to his car, he was very nearly knocked down by some halfwit driver turning without stopping, and his reaction—his thuddin
g heart and cold sweat and flash of anger—made him realize how much, nowadays, he did not want to die, and how dearly he valued his life.

  Then he went to Eddie’s grocery store.

  He went to the Charles Street branch of Eddie’s on a Monday afternoon. He needed milk. Milk was all he got, and so he assumed he would be through the checkout line in a matter of minutes. Except, wouldn’t you know, the woman in front of him turned out to have some trouble with her account. She wanted to use her house charge but she couldn’t remember her number. “I shouldn’t have to remember my number,” she said. She had the leathery, harsh voice of a longtime smoker, and her pale dyed flippy hair and girlish A-line skirt spelled out Country Club to Liam. (He had a prejudice against country clubs.) She said, “The Roland Park Eddie’s doesn’t ask my number.”

  “I don’t know why not,” the cashier told her. “In both stores, your number is how we access your account.”

  “Access” as a verb; good God. The world was going to hell in a handbasket. But then Liam was brought up short by what the woman said next.

  She said, “Well, perhaps they do ask, but I just tell them, ‘Look it up. You know my name: Mrs. Samuel Dunstead.’ ”

  Liam gazed fixedly at his carton of milk while the manager was called, the computer consulted, the account number finally punched in. He watched the woman sign her receipt, and then he cleared his throat and said, “Mrs. Dunstead?”

  She was putting on her sunglasses. She turned to look at him, the glasses lowered halfway from the top of her head where they had been perched.

  “I’m Liam Pennywell,” he told her.

  She settled her glasses on her nose and continued to look at him; or at least he assumed she did. (The lenses were too dark for him to be sure.)

  “The man who’s been seeing your daughter,” he said.

  “Seeing … Eunice?”

  “Right. I happened to overhear your name and I thought I’d—”

  “Seeing, as in …?”

  “Seeing as in, um, dating,” he said.

  “That’s not possible,” she told him. “Eunice is married.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know what you’re trying to pull here, mister,” she said, “but my daughter’s a happily married woman and she has been for quite some time.”